Durex wants you to use ☔️ to talk about safe 👉👌

The world’s biggest condom brand seems to be obsessed with emoji. Durex is on a very serious mission to get a condom emoji on your phone, as only three months ago it promoted a fictional eggplant flavor to bring attention to its cause.

Unfortunately, the Unicode consortium has denied its request — but that isn’t stopping the company from trying.

To mark World AIDS Day on December 1, the condom giant is launching its own, unofficial take on the safe sex emoji called “Umbrella with Raindrops”. The choice won the popular vote in a poll asking the brand’s fans to come up with an alternative to use for the latex contraception.

According to research commissioned by the company, more than 75 percent of 16 to 35 year-olds surveyed use emojis to discuss sex. Unicode doesn’t allow sexy emoji, however, so people are have to use various fruits and vegetables to convey the message.

And for condoms, if Durex has its way, there’s now ☔️. But if introducing a real condom emoji could help in getting more young adults to practice safe sex, I’m all for it, and I don’t understand why Unicode has to be such a 🍆 about it.